I woke with a start, strangely excited by images of a slender thigh. I struggled out of bed and made my way to the shower, stepping in only when it was piping hot. As a way to clear my mind it came second only to walking and I was sorely in need of the help. Sure enough, as the jet of water hit me, I was rocked by a thought.
What if everything led to Takata?
If my dreams were me trying to work out asleep the things I couldn’t while I was awake, had I created this evil character from Takata? Perhaps in real life there wasn’t another conspirator. Maybe I was seeing things that weren’t there – or, more likely, things Takata had planted in my head. Even if there was someone else it would make more sense for him to be a pawn in Takata’s game – Takata wasn’t the kind of man to follow another’s lead.
The thought was unsettling. If he was misleading me on this, he could be lying about Tomoe as well. Maybe he had taken her. If he had, it wouldn’t make sense to have me nosing around in earnest. That could be why he was holding me back. This thing about catalysts and the AGM – it might be smoke and mirrors. It was more likely I was being kept as a bargaining chip, or bait.
A week’s rest suddenly seemed a lot less relaxing.
Removing the plastic bag secured around my throbbing left hand, I dried myself awkwardly and tried to work out what I should do. I had no more options than I’d had at the start.
Then something came to me so obvious I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought it before. Sakura. Was that it? Was that what the dream was about? Was she the courtesan with all the answers?
Now I knew more of its background, the route into Senzoku-yon-chōme, or Yoshiwara as it had been, took on a different light. Rather than entering as I had previously and exposing myself to the streets’ eyes, I skirted around the side and came to the road leading to Matsubaya from a less conspicuous route.
It had been four o’clock when I first visited and with the half-hour wait for Sakura that should have meant it would be around 4:30 when she arrived. I pulled down my cap, keeping my tell-tale hand in my pocket, and tried to wait as unobtrusively as I could.
Dusk was drawing in and with it the early-evening autumn chill. I almost missed her as I hunched away from the breeze.
‘Sakura-san!’
She turned, startled.
‘Sakura-san, I came to visit you a few weeks ago – do you remember?’
I moved forwards, trying to looking as unthreatening as one can emerging from a concealed spot in an alley.
‘I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. They’re about my girlfriend. She’s gone missing and I think you can help.’
She hesitated a moment and then stepped towards me. ‘Yes, I remember you. We had fun.’
I blushed. It had only been a few weeks but things were so different now.
‘Yes, we did.’
‘So what are your questions? Please don’t let them be about people I can’t talk about.’
My stomach sank. I hadn’t been thinking. Or at least I had, but only about myself. If she told me the things I needed to know she’d be putting herself at risk. The risks so far had shown themselves to have precipitously high stakes.
‘Can I just ask them? Then you can decide if you can answer or not,’ I said. ‘I’m desperate. I don’t want to get you in trouble but I might be able to find my girlfriend with your help. Nothing you say will get back to anyone, I promise you. No one will even know that we spoke.’
She looked at me but didn’t say anything. I took that as a cue to go on.
‘In the last month or two, has Takata of the Takata-gumi come around here?’
She responded with a question that did nothing to answer mine.
‘You know this isn’t a Takata-gumi area any more? It was taken over by the Ginzo-kai in summer.’
I pulled my cap lower. I wasn’t sure how this affected things overall, but it was certainly more uncomfortable in the immediate term.
‘Look, I have an appointment in a minute – they might even come this way. Give me your number and I’ll see what I can do. I’d like to help if I can.’
She was in the kind of profession where crafting one’s emotions to please others was a fundamental part of the job. But I got the sense her sympathy was real. I typed my number in her phone and gave myself a missed call. She gave me another look – I wasn’t sure if I saw pity. I wondered what she knew.
‘I’ll call you, I promise. Take care.’
She gave me a peck on the cheek, and then turned and walked briskly towards her work.
The phone woke me at 2.30 a.m. – I suppose you have to allow for the different hours soapland girls keep.
‘There were three of them,’ she said by way of a greeting. ‘Takata-san and two other men.’
Her words cut through my grogginess.
‘Do you know who the other men were?’
‘No. But one of them, I’m sure I’d seen his face before – maybe on TV.’
‘And the other?’
‘It was definitely the first time I’d seen him.’
‘Do you know why they were meeting?’
‘No. I wasn’t even supposed to be there. My boss was meant to serve them – she knows Takata-san from when they were young. But she couldn’t come in – she’d had a fall and hurt her hip. She asked me to take care of them instead.’
She paused and I tried to work out what this meant and how it could help.
‘It seemed a strange place to meet – like I told you, this isn’t a Takata-gumi area any more.’
‘And you’ve got no idea what they were talking about?’
‘None at all. I just took them to their room and served refreshments. They burnt something though. They asked me to bring in a bin and some matches and there was ash in it when they left. They’d opened a window but the room still smelled.’
I shuffled into a sitting position, hoping things might seem clearer from there.
‘And the man, the one you’d seen before, did it look like he was Takata’s senior?’
‘No. When they spoke it was as equals. When they entered the room they debated who should take the head seat. They ended up leaving it empty.’
Another answer that made nothing clearer.
‘And the other man?’
‘He definitely wasn’t their equal, but I don’t think he was an employee or anything like that. He looked awkward, I don’t know, wary.’
‘Was there anything else? Anything unusual, anything that made you think?’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
I rubbed my eyes. I needed to think this through with a clear head. It seemed like valuable new information but it pulled in different directions and I was struggling to see how it could help.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’d like to do something to show my appreciation but I think it’s better if we pretended this call didn’t happen. You should delete my number. I’ll do the same with yours.’
She paused, as though debating something.
‘You’re sweet,’ she said. ‘I hope you find your girlfriend and everything works out.’
She hung up and I deleted her number. The only sakura in my future would be the cherry blossoms next spring.
I lay back and tried to work my way through what I’d just learned. Takata wasn’t the undisputed leader but nor was he being led. I didn’t believe the KanEnCo boss was his peer, so who could the other man be? I wondered if I should go back to politicians again.
A chill swept over me. Maybe it was the Ginzo-kai boss. Maybe they were in this together. That would explain why they met where they did and why they did so on equal terms. It would also make it more likely I was being used. More likely I’d be discarded when I was no longer needed.
Perhaps Takata was the real power behind the Kamigawa plant troubles and was using them to extort money from KanEnCo. I might be a smokescreen – a distraction to take attention away from him and make it look as though the Takata-gumi and Ginzo-kai were at odds.
Now I was wide awake, enlightened by information that turned everything murky, each new fact confusing rather than making things clear. It took me some time before I got back to sleep.